


so close and yet so far from death

by dragonsong (NekoAisu)



Series: FFXIVWrite 2020 [16]
Category: Final Fantasy XIV
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Other, Past Character Death, Red String of Fate, Soulmates
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-18
Updated: 2020-09-18
Packaged: 2021-03-07 16:02:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 517
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26520346
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NekoAisu/pseuds/dragonsong
Summary: Hydaelyn’s words ring in his head. The thread wrapping around his throat feels like a noose. He understands, now.They cannot be permitted to love.
Relationships: Hydaelyn & Meteor (Final Fantasy XIV), Meteor (Final Fantasy XIV)/Warrior of Light (Final Fantasy XIV)
Series: FFXIVWrite 2020 [16]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1906210
Comments: 2
Kudos: 8





	so close and yet so far from death

**Author's Note:**

> FFXIVWrite Prompt 17: Fade

Returning to the Lifestream is a lot more anticlimactic than Meteor expected it to be. He huffs a laugh, chest aching acutely from a wound he no longer bears, and allows himself to rest. Hydaelyn welcomes him back with a soft embrace. He did well, She says. He should be proud. 

He isn’t, but he tries to be for Her.

She soothes his pain with whispers of memory long since lost to time. He doesn’t realize when She begins pulling important things from his head (names, places, and faces fade like the setting of the sun), but She leaves most of his memories.

When She asks something of him, he complies. He finds it easy to watch over a new champion, to grant an adventurer visions using Her power, and play as a miniature god to guide more people into Her grasp. 

At least, he did until She picked him up in Her hands, aether coalescing around him and spinning a thin, silk-like thread that wrapped around his throat like a warning.  _ “Watch over them,”  _ She says, same as always,  _ “and use the gift I have given. They shall not repeat your mistake.” _

“Okay,” he answers, fighting against the urge to snap the thread in two. “I will.”

She smiles, invisible to his eyes but somehow tangible, and presses him face-first into the world of the living. 

The sensation of crossing the border between Her realm and that of the mortal world is not one he enjoys. It’s like taking a freezing shower, or walking face first into a bed of needles. His nerves shudder (and really, who decided souls should retain their sense of pain after death? He’d like to have some  _ words  _ with them) and he hurries to shake off the last of his discomfort so he can catch up to his charge.

They really aren’t anything special, he thinks, until he is close enough to catch sight of the threads winding around them. He’s seen them from above, far away from their mortal struggles, and knows they are quick to form bonds with strangers. He hadn’t expected this, however. 

Hydaelyn’s words ring in his head. The thread wrapping around his throat feels like a noose. He understands, now. 

They cannot be permitted to love. 

How impossible a task he has been given, to snip each and every thread before it can bind them to a fate far from Her reach. With every one he cuts, another is found in its place. They are nearly more thread than person.

He tries, though─to keep up with them means to head everything off at the pass, catch threads as they spin into existence and rend them apart before they can form a bond─even when doing so hurts to watch. 

(Oh, how they cry over those who will never love them back, the ones who have left, the ones who promised them the world and gave them nothing of it.)

He hopes the pain he feels will fade in time, that this will become easier, but in the moment it hurts him nearly more than them. 

**Author's Note:**

> hmu on:  
> Twitter [@khirimochi](https://twitter.com/khirimochi) OR [@TheHolyBody (NSFW)](https://twitter.com/TheHolyBody)  
> Tunglr @[Main](https://kiriami.tumblr.com) OR @[FFXIV Imagines](https://ffxivimagines.tumblr.com)


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